A kinder fortune
by crankyhermit
Summary: Hasumi is unlucky. It probably isn't a curse. WIP: Permanent hiatus, with author notes on how it ends.
1. written in ink

Written for the Free Verse Challenge, and also because I like Hasumi. Thanks to miskatonic for beta.

Disclaimer: This series and its characters etc etc are the property of people who are not me.

Warnings:  
1. Manga-based. I am not much of an anime watcher.  
2. Kawaii Onikui-Tengu-sama is still under a rock.

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A kinder fortune

Part 1:  
written in ink

When Ryoukan was only a month old, an astrologer told his father that the child was born under an unlucky star and would bring misfortune on his family. His father did not believe the fortune and had the astrologer thrown in the street with only a nominal fee in his pocket. The slighted soothsayer shook his head at the arrogance and wilful ignorance of the young, then tripped over a loose stone and fell into a muddy puddle. Shortly afterwards, he was run over by a carriage at a crossroads.

Ryoukan did not remember any of this, of course. His grandfather used to tell him the story as an object lesson of some sort that he did not understand, and then his mother would call him over for some mochi and tell him to go out to play with other children instead of sitting by himself in the corner.

The ill luck that dogs Hasumi's every step is something of a joke by now. Nobody even notices when, during a routine fire drill, Hasumi pauses to talk to the kind old cleaning lady and the school jacket slung over his arm is caught by the closing door, causing him to spill his books, papers and lunchbox over the floor. Even Hana-obachan has not noticed, carried away by a tide of sweaty, chattering young men before he'd managed to call her.

He's used to it. Sighing, Hasumi squats and patiently gathers up the well-trodden notes he had painstaking written out again after someone had spilled tea over the last set and thoroughly smudged the ink. Shoe-prints aside, they're not too badly damaged, and his books are only slightly kicked about. The lunchbox and its contents have to be written off as a complete loss, however. He'll have to join the neverending lunch queue and hope there is still something left by the time his turn comes.

Someone stumbles over him as he picks up the last book and manages to apologise two and a half times before being dragged off by his oblivious friends. Hasumi starts picking up his things again.

One of Ryoukan's earliest memories as a child was of sneaking out of his bed at night to play with the little girl who lived under the stairs. They were the best of friends until his frantic parents found him under the stairs the night the fire broke out and pulled him from the small space, scolding him for not being in his bed. Why were you hiding there? his father shouted at him, and his mother said, We were worried to death when we couldn't find you.

They would not listen when he screamed that his friend was still inside, and his grandfather only shook his head and patted him until he fell asleep exhausted from crying. No one knew anything about his friend under the stairs, and he never saw her again.

It is the sound of bells that catches his attention first, a soft jingle barely audible over the murmur of voices and tromping of shoes. He looks up; the source of the jingling turns at the same time, fair hair shining in the weak sunlight from a window. It is a boy, wearing small bells on a cord around his wrist and a uniform that somehow manages to fit and seem ill-fitting at the same time.

The boy seems momentarily startled, then a delighted smile breaks over his face. He waves at someone, presumably behind Hasumi. Hasumi feels strangely disappointed as the boy comes towards him, still smiling, then his heart skips a beat as the boy stops in front of him and begins to help him gather his things.

"Popular, aren't you?" says the boy with cruel irony, with a nod of his head to indicate the masses flowing past them, and Hasumi feels his cheeks burning with humiliation. The boy seems surprised, as though at himself, mouthing No? and shaking his head slightly, but it is only for a moment, and he is smiling brightly at Hasumi again as he hands over the papers he has collected. "Here."

"Where are you from? Should you be wearing the school uniform?" Hasumi asks him brusquely, trying to regain some dignity, and is unspeakably relieved when no other mishaps befall. He really does look too young to be a first year even.

The boy frowns at Hasumi thoughtfully, his strange red eyes assessing. When he smiles again, it is much less pleasant. With his arms taken up with the jumble of jacket, books and papers, Hasumi can't do anything when the boy says, "You're a first-year, aren't you, Hasumi-kun. Run along and join your class," and pats his head insultingly. The boy vanishes back into the crowd, leaving Hasumi gaping as Tanaka and Yamada come running back again after finally noticing his absence.

"Do you know who that is?" he asks them. They look surprised.

"You don't know?" asks Yamada. "He's Ichinomiya-senpai from the folklore department."

"It's best not to associate too much with him," says Tanaka. "He's good, but a little strange, if you take my meaning."

"I think he's nice," Yamada mutters, and turns a little red.

When Ryoukan was seven, another fortune-teller came by, warning of sorrows and tragedies that only he could avert, which he would gladly do out of the goodness of his heart, for just a token payment. Ryoukan's father swore at him and had him thrown out. The charlatan stood in the street and cursed them all, but most particularly Ryoukan, whom he declared would grow up without a father, be loved by someone unsuitable, fall in love with someone he could never have, never have children of his own, be afflicted by many unsightly diseases and scorned by all his friends, betrayed by his children, and probably just about anything the man could think of until Megumi-san, the maid, threw a basin of washing water in his face to shut him up.

His father's business took a turn for the worse. They moved to the countryside, and later that same year, the family home was destroyed in an earthquake. Only Ryoukan survived.

"I am doomed," wails Tanaka in a piercing whisper as they wait outside Kawaguchi-sensei's office. "I just can't do it!" Yamada tries to shush him in vain; he is too far engrossed in his self-pity to notice or care about the stares of the passing students, or that his laments might be overheard by the infamously unsympathetic Kawaguchi-sensei.

He's been like that all day, alternately bawling about writer's block and how useless all his research has turned out, and bemoaning his own incompetence and how he has let his family down. Yamada thinks he may have stepped in something and offended a kami, or perhaps been latched onto by a malignant spirit of some sort. Hasumi thinks it's complete nonsense and Tanaka should be ashamed of himself for making such a fuss, but he can't help but worry along with Yamada that their friend does not seem to be taking the pressure too well.

"Oh. Yes, I've seen that article before, Sensei. Thanks anyway." They hear Ichinomiya-senpai's voice floating from the office as the door opens; he sounds disappointed. Hasumi wonders why. Ichinomiya-senpai stops outside the office and closes the door, the bells on his wrist chiming softly. He sweeps the three of them with a narrowed stare, and Hasumi privately curses Yamada's insistence that they bring Tanaka, at this particular time, to beg Kawaguchi-sensei for an extension on his term paper before it becomes too late.

Since their first meeting, Hasumi has embarrassed himself before this irritating senpai again too many times. When Tanaka said that Ichinomiya was good, he meant that he was good at his work, not in morals or personality. Hasumi had gotten a reference wrong on the first page of his first essay, which Ichinomiya immediately noticed and pointed out when they ran into each other in the hall and Hasumi dropped the incriminating paper in front of him. The notes he had copied off Yamada to replace the ruined ones were filled with mistakes even he could spot, and he had to buy a new set off a far too amused Ichinomiya. And there were the countless minor daily accidents seemingly designed to make him look like a clumsy fool that Ichinomiya always managed to witness. No wonder he always seems pleased to see Hasumi. He probably thinks of Hasumi as comic relief.

Except he isn't smiling now. He looks from Hasumi to Tanaka to Yamada and back to Tanaka, who ignores the senpai he professes to dislike and loudly blows his nose into his handkerchief, unashamed. Yamada looks oddly hopeful.

Ichinomiya-senpai mutters something into the cup of water in his hand, then upends it over Tanaka, who shuts up from sheer surprise.

"What the hell-" Tanaka begins angrily, jumping to his feet, and is suddenly transformed by inspiration. "I have it! Yes! Yes!" he screams and runs down the hallway, forgetting all about his soaking or his friends. Yamada sighs in relief.

"What's all that noise out there about?" roars Kawaguchi-sensei from inside the office, and they make a break for it before he comes out with his walking stick to wreak retribution for the disturbance.

Whenever he had the opportunity, Ryoukan liked to walk by himself in the woods. It was on one such occasion that he found the small brown fox in the hunter's trap, whimpering in pain and terror, its leg all torn up from its panicked attempts to get free. Its eyes were bright with fever and tears as he came closer to look at it. It snapped at him when he attempted to stroke it soothingly; he pulled his fingers back just in time. Thinking over the problem, he took off his shirt and put it over the fox's head so it couldn't see while he worked the jaws of the trap open. Fortunately, it was too weak to struggle much when he picked it up and washed its hot, swollen leg in the stream, and afterwards it thirstily lapped the water he carried to it in his hands. It regained its strength much faster than he expected. When it finished drinking, it licked his hand and limped away, pausing to look back at him when he hesitantly called out, "Goodbye."

Afterwards, he was punished for getting his shirt so dirty.

"Ideally, we should go direct to the source to ask," says Ichinomiya scornfully, cutting into their debate over research methods as the Voice of Authoritative Non-Sequitor. Hasumi scowls at the intrusion into their room. They run into Ichinomiya more often than Hasumi likes, and Ichinomiya does not seem at all averse to joining them, freshmen or not. The other seniors tend to avoid him unless they need him to write a paper for them, which he has no objections to doing, for the right price. Hasumi disapproves.

"How else would we know, for example, that _rokurokubi _expose their necks to sleeping people? Don't you agree, Jyuu-roku-ro-chan?" he drawls, drawing a finger down the back of Yamada's neck.

Yamada squeaks and claps his hands over his neck. "E-expose? I-I don't know anything about ex-exposing anything."

"Do we even know that _rokurokub_i exist, much less that they do expose their necks to sleeping people? Who made up such a ridiculous story anyway?" Tanaka demands, eternally sceptical.

"Jyuurokuro?" Hasumi asks, distracted, before he can think how rude it is when poor Yamada has never spoken of his given name for obvious reasons.

Yamada is fortunately not offended, only resigned. "Strange name, I know," he says, sounding plaintive. "I wanted to be Takeshi, or maybe Akira, but no, my family would have none of it."

Tanaka kicks Hasumi in what he probably thinks is a discreet manner under the table. Ichinomiya laughs behind his fan at them. "Your room-mate," he says to Yamada at last, "he's drunk out of his mind and can't find his keys. Go save him." Yamada blushes again and scurries away.

Ichinomiya-senpai gives Hasumi a small, private wave and follows Yamada. "What's up with him and Yamada?" Tanaka asks, then frowns at Hasumi, who is, oddly, feeling a little warm. "Or with him and you?" A sudden gust of wind knocks his pens from their stand; ink splatters, papers flip and blow across the table, smudging the helpful comment Ichinomiya had added on his notes on his last visit.

End part 1


	2. drawn on the skin

Thanks, disclaimers and warnings in Part 1. Also, much thanks to the kind reviewers. Replies to questions at end. **

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A kinder fortune**

Part 2:  
drawn on the skin

_Hasumi Ryoukan did not like to talk about it, but he had an imaginary friend as a child. During one of his solitary forays into the little wood behind the orphanage, he met a girl with deep, red-brown hair like autumn leaves trodden into the earth, who smelled of loam and running water and the forest in summer. She sat beneath the trees, watching fallen leaves float by on the clear, sparkling stream, and seemed as lonely as he, though wary as a wild creature. But he came every day and waited patiently nearby, careful not to startle her, until one day she came to him of her own accord and asked if he wanted to play._

Yamada is stuck tending his badly hung-over roommate the next day. Hasumi and Tanaka go for lunch without him, but promise to get something and drop it off at his room when they come back. The two of them watch in awe as the _vicious_-looking debate between Ichinomiya-senpai and Yakko-san in the middle of the cafeteria ends with Yakko-san slapping his back with improbable heartiness that looks as if she is trying to dislodge something from a choking victim's throat, while Ichinomiya-senpai mutters at her in a disgruntled fashion and pulls faces at her back. Yakko-san laughs and departs gracefully, her every move a dance of victory. Ichinomiya spots them and makes his way over, waving cheerily.

"H-How can that horrible little man be so rude to the divine Yakko-sama?" Tanaka sputters in outrage, his face nearly purple. "Excuse me, I can't stand to look at him for now. I hate you!" he shouts at Ichinomiya as he runs from the cafeteria. What he really means is that he is jealous beyond words that Ichinomiya is on such easy terms with the beautiful Yakko-san, who has absolutely no idea he is madly infatuated with her, or even that he exists, because he runs away every time she walks into the same room.

Hasumi feels much the same way, aware in a horribly embarrassing way that, like Tanaka, he belongs to the class of cliche doomed to unhappily unrequited love. But he can't bring himself to say the same thing to Ichinomiya-senpai, who looks like he knows how Hasumi feels anyway. Instead: "You're quite close to Yakko-san."

Ichinomiya-senpai has a wry look on his face as he sits beside Hasumi with his tray. "We've known each other for a while." Then he smiles conspiratorially and nudges Hasumi's elbow with his. "Do you want an introduction? Be warned, though, she'll eat you alive."

He feels - he feels very warm, his breath is a little fast, and if he's honest, he's not sure if it's because of the idea of meeting Yakko-san and possibly being eaten by her, or because Ichinomiya-senpai is so near, and saying these things to him in a soft, intimate voice, as if they are close friends sharing a secret. His mouth is dry; swallowing, he reaches for his glass of tea without looking and Ichinomiya grabs his hand just before he touches the side of a hot kettle he could have sworn was on the next table the last time he looked.

"Stop that!" Ichinomiya snaps, looking angry. He looks down, away, and drops Hasumi's hand. Then he exhales, and gentles his voice, avoiding Hasumi's embarrassed sidelong glance. "You have to pay more attention to your surroundings."

The warm feeling is gone. Hasumi looks down at his hands and wonders if it's possible to appear even more stupid and incompetent in Ichinomiya's eyes. Their spirited discussions of methodology and obscure folklore, and the (un)likelihood of the existence of _youkai_ aside, he's probably spending time with Hasumi out of pity. As he'd said at their first meeting, Hasumi's not at all popular. Tanaka is compelled to keep company with him to greater or lesser extent because they are roommates and share a number of subjects, while Yamada is really closer to Tanaka or Ichinomiya, even if he seems to like Hasumi well enough.

"I'm sorry," says Ichinomiya-senpai quietly, seemingly absorbed in his cooling tea, while Hasumi is still trying to think of a way to politely excuse himself. "I only wanted to be friends, with both of you. Was I wrong?"

Hasumi is confused. He looks around quickly to see if Tanaka has come back, or if Yamada has torn himself away from his sick roommate after all, but they're still alone at the table, and he realises belatedly that he has been silent too long. "O-of course not. You've helped us a lot, and I- I..." and he realises he can't complete that sentence.

Too long a pause, and Ichinomiya-senpai must have read? misread? something in his voice or manner, because he bows his head, pushes away his tray, and stands, as if he'd received an answer Hasumi had not intended. "I understand. I won't bother you again."

"S-senpai! I didn't mean-" Somehow, he must have said something wrong, or given himself away, and Ichinomiya-senpai is letting him down gently, but Hasumi hadn't meant for things to turn out like this, and doesn't know what to do. He clenches his fists under the table, but can't think of anything to say that won't make him look more pathetic. He can only watch as Ichinomiya walks away without looking back.

_Ryoukan did not realise his friend wasn't real at first, though in retrospect he thought he should have wondered where she had come from if not the orphanage, for there were no homes close enough that it would be convenient to come daily._

_But she was different and magical, and did not make fun of his reserved manners, his glasses, his shaved head or his interest in folklore and legends. In fact, she knew even more stories than he did, and showed him secret glades and overgrown shrines that, she said, _youkai_ often used as meeting places, and some even lived there all the time, if he could only see them._

_He did try, and thought sometimes he could imagine strange and wondrous creatures peeking from the shadows and waving shyly at him. She was the best friend he ever had._

When he gets back to the hostel, he walks around in the small garden for a while before he goes back to the room he shares with Tanaka. Tanaka is curled up in bed and Ignoring Him, sulking over a game of go he appeared to be playing against himself and losing badly.

"I'm back," Hasumi says at last, after waiting at the door for an awkward few minutes while Tanaka refuses to look at him.

"Welcome," Tanaka mutters grudgingly after another pause, and sets down another white stone with a loud click. "That was fast. Not going to talk with Ichinomiya about his research on _youkai_ today?"

"Ah, no. Weren't we going to get lunch for Yamada?"

"Yamada can get his own lunch, or he can ask his precious Ichinomiya-senpai. He's always 'Senpai, this', 'Senpai, that', and if he's not paying attention, 'Kan-chan'!" Tanaka sweeps the go stones aside in frustration and tugs his blanket over his head. "I don't see what you all see in him!"

Hasumi hasn't heard Yamada address Ichinomiya this way before, but Tanaka and Yamada were in the same high school, and the perfect imitation of Yamada's excited tones speak of long familiarity.

It's a little worrying. Tanaka's a little quick-tempered at the best of times, but Hasumi has never known him to stay upset for long, much less take out his annoyance with one person on another. He wishes momentarily that he could change Tanaka's mood instantly by dousing him with water, the way Ichinomiya had done when Tanaka was upset over his assignment. But getting Tanaka's bed wet will likely just make Tanaka even more annoyed with him. Hasumi sighs. "All right, I'll go by myself then."

_She was the best friend Ryoukan ever had, but she wasn't real._

Hasumi is feeling lucky that he has managed to get the last two bentos for Yamada and his roommate. He begins to feel a little less lucky walking down the dingy corridor of Yamada's hostel, which is the cheapest and most disreputable of the lodgings available to the students. The air is dank and musty, and it looks like the ceiling, or at least the cracked plaster, will fall down on all their heads any minute. He worries for Yamada, who is stuck here and has to look after his roommate who is either drunk or recovering from a fight more often than not, and thinks he should feel relieved his scholarship saves him from having to stay here as well.

But all he can think of is the way the inhabitants look suspiciously at him, as if they think he is planning to report them for some offence or another, or as if they are thinking of asking him for his lunch money. He avoids their eyes, keeping his gaze fixed on the grimy floor, and finds his way to the quiet room at the end of the corridor that no one goes to because of the cobwebs and ghost stories.

Hasumi is at the door with his hand raised to knock when he hears voices. He wonders if Yamada's roommate is awake. Then Ichinomiya says, "Oh, go ahead, it's not like I haven't seen it all before."

"Kan-chan!" Yamada is laughing, in his nervous, embarrassed way. "You're sure he won't wake?"

Their voices drop to murmurs he can't make out, and there is soft laughter. His fingers brush the cool wood of the door, and Hasumi comes to himself with a start, a little horrified to realise he is trying to eavesdrop on his friends.

Tanaka was right, he needn't have troubled himself to get lunch for Yamada since Ichinomiya is here already. But he's already eaten, and so has Tanaka. He doesn't want the food to go to waste. He puts the bag down at the door and knocks once, causing Yamaka to squeak in surprise, and runs away before they open the door. Classes, yes, he still has classes to go to.

Tanaka is still under the blanket when he gets back late that night, after a protracted talk with Kawaguchi-sensei about his last paper and the subject Yakko-san had been debating with Ichinomiya in the cafeteria. Hasumi wonders if he should worry, but Tanaka's things have been moved, and he has put away his go board. He is also snoring loudly. Hasumi smiles at the rasping sound, a little exasperated, but relieved all the same. Tanaka will be all right in the morning.

He goes to bed, still thinking of Yakko-san, her beauty, her grace, her intelligence, and the casual way she had grabbed Ichinomiya's slim arm and pulled him aside to talk about whether _oni_ were born or made. Yakko-san, he thinks, shares his opinions on _youkai_, and Ichinomiya had seemed to think she would like him. He burrows deeper into the blankets and puts the pillow over his head; Tanaka's snoring is somehow even louder and more obtrusive than usual tonight.

Just as he's about to run out of patience and get up to shake Tanaka awake, Tanaka grunts and mutters, his arms and legs flailing wildly. Hasumi suppresses a laugh - Tanaka always does that when Yamada comes to prod him awake. Tanaka will continue to struggle with his blankets until the cause of his discomfort ends. Sure enough, in a few moments, Tanaka makes a frustrated sound and turns over. The snoring eases. Hasumi is sure that he's not the only one grateful for the quiet.

When he finally falls asleep, he dreams of hands, and a soft voice, caressing. He reaches out blindly, gasps, "senpai!" and jerks awake with the shock like the force of a slap. Shaken, Hasumi sits up in his bed and traces his fingers along an angry red scratch down his chest.  


End part 2

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Ginzai: It's not canon, no. I expect this to become fully AU as and when Kinoshita and Higashiyama decide to do their backstory.   
Louise: Hasumi is in his first year at university. There is a mention of Kantarou's hobby, only Hasumi doesn't know about it.


	3. torn up

Thanks, disclaimers and warnings in Part 1.  
**

* * *

A kinder fortune**

Part 3: torn up

_Ryoukan used to be afraid of a certain bridge – really an old log – that spanned a small stream. It smelt wet and musty, and there were spiders and wood lice in the holes, while softer parts of the decaying wood sometimes gave way and threatened to trap an unwary foot, but it wasn't that he was afraid he would be trapped in the woods when it was so close to the orphanage. Rather, he only had an unreasoning fear of this ordinary sunlit clearing, as if he knew that something lurked in the dim shadows beneath, waiting for him to cross alone. _

_Then one day, she called to him from the other side and as he hurried across, saw that somehow it seemed brighter, less shadowed than he remembered. She was laughing when he reached her. There was nothing to fear, and he abandoned his childish trepidations. The bridge never troubled him again._

In the morning, Tanaka is almost back to his usual self, if a little red-eyed and restless. Hasumi is even slower and clumsier than usual, so much so that the fifth time he trips over his own bag while packing, Tanaka snatches it from his hands.

"Give me that before you kill yourself with it. I will save you from yourself, and you will buy me lunch in gratitude," he declares nobly. Hasumi thinks about it for a moment, then decides that he has no energy to argue debts and who owes who what now with Tanaka, and waves him to go on ahead. Tanaka frowns and presses the back of his hand to Hasumi's forehead. "Are you feeling all right?

Hasumi swats at him irritably. "I'm fine, leave me alone."

"You must be sick, you never agree to buy me lunch! Come on, I'll take you to the infirmary, get up." Tanaka drags Hasumi to his feet, and Hasumi hits him over the head with a notebook for his pains.

"I'm not sick! I never agreed to buy you lunch!"

Tanaka sticks his tongue out at Hasumi and skips away, holding up Hasumi's bag tauntingly. "You're not getting this back, you ingrate." Hasumi follows him with the notebook and uses its harder spine instead. "Hey, hey, stop that, you miser, ow!"

They continue tussling as they hurry down for the first lecture of the day, which they are already late for, and pass Ichinomiya with Yamada in the hallway. Tanaka does not notice, but Yamada, who is not in this class with them, looks up and smiles, then looks puzzled when Ichinomiya lets them pass without acknowledgement. Hasumi ducks his head, feeling unaccountably awkward about the nebulous dream of the night before, and there is a burning pain in his chest, as if sharp nails are digging into his flesh.

_There were times when he did not see his friend for days, or even weeks, but when she came back, she always had new stories or some small gift for him – sweets, a bright paper pinwheel, a small stone worn smooth by a river. Not having anything else, he gave her a red ribbon from one of the dolls in the playroom, with slightly frayed ends and a small inkstain he could not wash out. She seemed so sincerely delighted with this poor gift that Ryoukan was too embarrassed to give her anything afterwards._

It is several days before Tanaka, in the middle of the lunch hour, looks up and starts to speak, then chokes on his half-chewed mouthful of katsudon. Hasumi stares at him for a moment, then gets up and pounds on his back until he coughs it up.

"Did you have a quarrel with Ichinomiya or something?" Tanaka asks, after he recovers from his coughing fit. "I haven't seen him around for a while."

"No, we..." Hasumi doesn't quite understand what happened during their last meeting, much less know how to explain it, but Ichinomiya is keeping his word and not bothering him, and he can't bring himself to say _he _is_ annoying, but I didn't want him to ignore me completely_, and closes his mouth on the words. "Why do you care anyway? I thought you hated him?"

Undaunted by his accident, Tanaka shrugs and takes another large bite of the chicken. "I need to borrow his notes. Was going to ask next time he showed up, but," he stops and eyes Hasumi with atypical shrewdness, "you two really aren't talking anymore, are you?"

"I don't know," Hasumi admits, and looks down at his sandwich.

Tanaka frowns and seems about to ask another question, but Hasumi is saved from making misdirected and inappropriate confessions when he jumps up on the table and waves his empty lunch tray like a flag. "Over here! Yamada, you idiot, where have you been this whole week?"

Across the hall Yamada lights up and waves back. Through the crowd, Hasumi can see Ichinomiya murmur something to Yamada and leave.

"Notes, Yamada, do you have notes for Kawaguichi's class last Friday?" Tanaka demands, and Yamada raises a tragic hand to his forehead as if he is about to swoon.

"You only love me for my notes," he sighs, and it would have been quite theatrical if Yamada had been able to express himself in any way but "shy and earnest, possibly wistful", so that several heads turn to stare at the tragic scene and Yamada blushes to find himself suddenly the centre of attention. It does not help salvage how the situation looks at all, but the rumours about their being a couple were old by the end of freshman orientation, and after the initial shocked silence, everyone continues their lunch as usual.

"Aah, you are disgusting," says Tanaka good-humouredly, settling down to continue his lunch. Hasumi is relieved that he has been distracted from further questioning.

"It's your fault," Yamada mutters, cheeks flushed crimson and keeping his eyes cast down and fixed on his lunch. He stirs his bowl of miso with his chopsticks and glances up at Hasumi. "Hey, did you see Ichinomiya-senpai yesterday? He said... Uh... are- are you feeling quite well? Bad mood?"

He hadn't realised it was so obvious. "I'm fine," he says, embarrassed. "Just haven't been sleeping well."

"Oh. I- I, um, I'm sorry." Yamada shrinks into himself, wide-eyed and hurt, as though he has been slapped unexpectedly. "I'll leave you alone, ok?"

Hasumi has the strangest feeling that Yamada is not addressing him. Tanaka is silent, studying them as he shovels food into his mouth. He is only relieved when lunch ends and they have to split up for the next class.

_The one thing that Ryoukan thought was the most impressive about his friend was the way she could go anywhere she liked without getting caught, and Ryoukan himself could never sneak up on her successfully. Of course, they never bothered to play hide-and-seek._

Everyone seems to think Hasumi is some kind of moody fool, but really, Tanaka is more temperamental than ten girls trying to make their own chocolates on the eve of Valentine's day. The week after he had his jealous fit over Yakko-san was fairly quiet, even without Yamada's usual calming influence, but right now, he's crouched at a mouse-hole he spotted under his desk and hissing curses at the vile creatures that had chewed several holes in his favourite socks, and he looks as if he would crawl in and catch the mouse himself if he could.

It's a little distracting, but not the strangest thing he ever did. Tanaka will get through it the same way he gets into and gets over all his mood swings: suddenly and with no apparent reason. Hasumi could care less, but not by much. Sharing a room with Tanaka means that one has to accept his occasional eccentricity, and he's not a bad sort normally – cheerful, fearless and protective of his friends – _if_ one is willing to overlook his idea of what passes for affectionate teasing. And his snoring.

The second day of this latest odd behaviour, Hasumi finds himself getting used to the hissing and feels oddly relaxed, as if he has the room to himself, because Tanaka is clearly not paying any attention to him at all.

He knows who it is before he hears the approaching footsteps, he thinks, instinctively straightening in his seat as the light tread stops before their door and Yamada's tentative rapping precedes his entry. Tanaka manages to startle and hits his head against the bottom of the desk. More rasping expletives ensue. Yamada scowls at his back and smiles hesitantly at Hasumi, murmurs a "thank you" to himself. Then he kicks Tanaka in the rear. Tanaka falls silent.

"What?" In fact, violence from Yamada, even violence as trivial and un-painful-looking as this, probably deserved a "What the hell?" but Hasumi's still somewhat confused over what had transpired at their last meeting and doesn't feel comfortable swearing around Yamada yet.

"Ow," says Tanaka, in a very small, sheepish voice.

"It's all right, I do understand," says Yamada under his breath, and Hasumi is wondering what Tanaka has done to annoy Yamada this time when Yamada takes a deep breath. "You idiot! You have no resistance to anything at all! Have you no pride? I can't leave you alone for so much as a day!"

While Tanaka is still blinking in confusion as though he has just woken up, Yamada has vanished and slammed the door behind him. "I don't know what's wrong with him either," Hasumi tells him apologetically.

_Once, he let her follow him back to the orphanage, where he shared a meal with her in the musty space under the stairs, out of sight of the perpetually disapproving matron. There wasn't quite enough to eat, but they had fun giggling together at the oblivious adults tromping up and down overhead._

After that, Tanaka goes back to acting like a human, and Yamada is willing to spend time with the two of them again, though he never explains up his strange actions of the past two days and he still takes off to talk furtively with Ichinomiya on occasion. Things are almost like normal, or what normal was before Hasumi dropped his books and picked up an irritating senpai, who now irritates him irrationally by his conspicuous absence.

They are in the same department, and spend enough time in the same small area that it would be perfectly ordinary if they bumped into each other half a dozen times a day, but he sees Ichinomiya once on a good day, usually just out of the corner of his eye. That's clear and deliberate avoidance, and it's so obvious that people are starting to look him askance, because any normal person would be avoiding Ichinomiya, not the other way around.

Obviously, there's something even more wrong with him than there is with Ichinomiya. In fact, the only people besides his teachers willing to talk to him now are Tanaka and Yamada, and they are equally odd and annoying in their own way.

Hasumi is beginning to think he needs to confront Ichinomiya and insist on a proper explanation for every misfortune he can think of to lay at the bastard's feet. When Hasumi finally manages to catch sight of Ichinomiya in the hallway, he is suddenly at a loss for words, unable to decide which of his woes to complain of first, and his quarry is gone before he can open his mouth to speak.

"We really need to talk," he finally says to the empty air, and earns himself more strange looks.

_The next time, she brought a bloody rabbit to share with him. He took a look at its glassy, staring eyes and couldn't eat for the rest of the day, and afterwards she never offered him food again. _

"We need to talk," Hasumi says again, alone in his room. It is not a rehearsal, but he doesn't sound convincing even to himself. Wanting is not need, however much it feels like the same thing. Hasumi surreptitiously rubs at his chest. The mysterious scratch on his chest, still half-healed, still stings, a little.

End part 3


	4. untitled fragment and notes on the end

Thanks, disclaimers and warnings in Part 1.  
**

* * *

A kinder fortune**

****

Part 4: Untitled bit written years ago and never posted

_The last time Ryoukan saw his grandfather at the orphanage was fairly unremarkable. The old man's visits were infrequent and unpredictable, and Ryoukan didn't know it was the last time until much later, when he counted the seasons and realised that he hadn't seen his grandfather for over a year._

The first thing Tanaka says to Hasumi when they meet again in the courtyard of their hostel after the term break is, "Isn't it a lovely day?" It isn't. It's damp and drippy, and Hasumi suspects his cupboard of fomenting mildew behind his back.

The second, third and fourth things Tanaka says, to Yamada's acute and cringing embarrassment, and too fast for Hasumi to think of a response to any of them: "Everybody needs someone to love and who loves them back. Do you have a girlfriend, Hasumi? You really should get one, it will be good for you, you don't go out enough and the world is _beautiful_."

The fifth thing he says: "You look like hell."

The sixth thing he says, before Hasumi can protest: "Miki-chan is the most wonderful girl in the world, and I am the luckiest man alive, because she is going out with me." This part makes Yamada look faintly pained, due no doubt to the humiliation of being seen in close proximity to the idiot Tanaka is making of himself.

Satisfied with his announcement, Tanaka floats off happily towards the cafeteria, and they shuffle along a few steps behind in his dreamy wake, pretending they are not walking with him. "Wasn't he in love with Yakko-san just last... week?" Hasumi murmurs discreetly under his breath to Yamada, who shrugs and waves his hands helplessly as if to indicate that this abrupt change of heart is nothing out of the ordinary for Tanaka.

"Yakko-san is an angel, a goddess descended from the heavens and far from the reach of such humble mortals as me," Tanaka declares, overhearing them. "Miki-chan is sweet and kind, and she bakes delicious cookies. How could I refuse to return her love? Have you seen a doctor, Hasumi? You look really bad." Tanaka looks sincerely concerned when he stops without warning and spins around to grab Hasumi, nearly giving him a concussion by bumping their foreheads together to check his temperature. This is the only reason why Hasumi doesn't throw him into the koi pond in self-defence. The koi must be grateful.

"It's no big deal," Hasumi insists, shoving Tanaka to a more decorous distance. At Tanaka's sceptical frown, he explains, "I was feeling poorly for a while, but I'm better now. I finally managed to get a full night's sleep after I finished the last paper for Kawaguchi's class yesterday. Who's Miki-chan?" he hisses as an aside to Yamada.

"Masumoto, that girl with the pigtails. You know her, she's in our class." Yamada looks around nervously, then grimaces at Hasumi. "You really do look worse than when you came to interview my great-aunt. I'm sorry."

"I-" He begins, and stops. There's no way he's going to tell Yamada about the feverish dreams and the mysterious scratches on his chest – Yamada will just run to Ichinomiya and tell him Hasumi is being harassed by _kami_ or _youkai_, or something equally ridiculous, and that's not a fight he's willing to concede yet. Someone - one of the seniors - elbows Hasumi in passing, but Yamada grabs him before he falls, though he still drops one of his books. Irritated, Hasumi shrugs off his hands and bends to pick up the book. "I told you, I'm fine, I've finished the paper, and why are you apologising for my insomnia anyway?"

The senior trips over something and Yamada flinches at the barked expletive he lets out. "I'm sorry."

"See you in class later, Hasumi. Oh, Miki-chan," Tanaka sighs and drifts off again. Yamada hurries after him with a guilty glance back at Hasumi.

_On the orphanage's annual trip to the nearby shrine, Ryoukan got two fortunes, one for himself and one for his friend, though he wasn't sure if the fortunes would count since he drew both of them himself. One said, "Let the truth light your way," and the other, "Heed not meaningless aphorisms." Ryoukan crumpled them both up and threw them away._

Hasumi is not, it seems, the only person who wants to find Ichinomiya. When he finds himself unexpectedly cornered in the library by Yakko-san, of all people, Hasumi is, to say the least, dazzled.

"So you are Kantarou's Hasumi-kun," she says in her lilting voice, and _puts her hand on his head_. Hasumi squeaks. "Aren't you cute."

"Y-Y-Yik," he says, thinks, faintly, _Yakko-san_ and squeaks again, as she pets his stubbled scalp, _Yakko-san is rubbing my head!_, only peripherally aware that people are passing by and trying not to stare, because most of his consciousness has latched onto _Yakko-san_, and _rubbing_, and _head_, and he is on the verge of passing out. "Yik. Yak-yakko-san!"

"Why so alarmed, Hasumi-kun? I don't bite," she says, laughing, and Hasumi wishes desperately for the ground to open up and swallow him as his face turns beet-red at the image his helpful mind immediately conjures of Yakko-san _biting_ him while Ichinomiya looks on and laughs. "I just wanted to see the Hasumi-kun he was talking about, and ask if you've seen him lately. He's been hiding from me again."

_So I'm not the only one he's been hiding from,_he thinks, and suddenly feels a little better. "I haven't seen him," he manages to say without stuttering, then squeaks again when she smiles and pats his cheek lightly as she turns to go.

"That's all right, he can't hide from me forever. You'll look better with longer hair, though." And just like that, Yakko-san is gone.

"What was… do you know her?" Tanaka looks as stunned as he feels; Hasumi can only shake his head in dazed reply. He finds enough presence of mind to wonder that Yamada looks even more affected than either of them: he is as pale as a sheet.

* * *

A/N: This is where I stopped writing to wait for new manga chapters to come out and never started again. Sorry that I haven't been able to continue. It's been too long and I'm in the wrong head-space for this. Here are the notes for what is supposed to happen in the rest of the story, for those who stumble over this late, or still remember for some reason and want to know what on earth is going on.

**break to the end**

1. The girl Hasumi met in the woods is a fox, but when he complains to her about the orphanage, she decides to take revenge for him and causes a lot of damage. Realising that she is dangerous to humans, he stops her by denying her reality, which hurts and weakens her because he named her.

2. So we get to the present, and she gets jealous and angry because Hasumi is interested in Kantarou, with all the associated youkai friends. Yamada is a rokurokubi, and this ties in with the main story because he came to the school to be with his unaware human, Tanaka, like the fox. As she gets more upset and exercises her powers more, she begins to drain Hasumi's life.

3. Kantarou asks her to stop for Hasumi's sake, she tells him, "Who says I am doing this for his sake? I don't love him in order to benefit him." Her hurt and rage has made her an oni, and she would rather kill him than let anyone else have him. Hasumi is having trouble denying something strange is going on by now as well. Having failed to dissuade her, Kantarou spends a night with Hasumi to guard him. They talk, and Kantarou says, back turned to Hasumi, "I am so tired of pretending."

4. Tanaka is injured and Yamada's rokurokubi nature is discovered, and Yamada flees back into the mountains from whence he came.

5. Kantarou and Hasumi lay a trap for the fox. When it is clear she will lose and be destroyed, Kantarou offers her a bargain. "If neither of us can have him, can't I be enough for you?"

6. She breaks down and agrees, comes to Kantarou. In the instant before her oni nature disperses fully, she stabs him with one of her broken-off horns. Kantarou embraces and names her. The story ends here.

postscript:  
In the epilogue, Hasumi doesn't remember anything of the events in the story, but he is disturbed when Kantarou comes back to school after a long and unexplained illness openly talking of youkai as though they are real in spite of people scoffing. It bothers him most when a young girl (Youko) comes to see Kantarou at school. Hasumi and Kantarou don't associate beyond the sort of sniping that goes on in the series proper.

Thanks for reading.


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